1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera apparatus suitable for quickly verifying and displaying a shot image immediately after shooting, and to an image processing method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there are electronic cameras having a function for enabling the verification and display of a shot image on a display unit such as an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), etc. for a predetermined time period immediately after shooting so that the shot image can be verified immediately.
With a process related to this function, data which is captured from an image capturing element such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Devices), etc. and for which an image display process is not executed (hereinafter referred to as “RAW data”) is temporarily stored in a buffer memory in normal cases.
Then, processes such as a process for generating and recording image data to be recorded from the temporarily stored RAW data, a process for generating and displaying image data to be verified and displayed, which is obtained by reducing, from the temporarily stored RAW data, the amount of image data to a display size (a size to be displayed on an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), a size to be displayed on a video, etc.), and the like are executed. Additionally also a process for generating image data such as a thumbnail image, an index image, etc. is executed.
In the meantime, as one example of a technology for generating image data to be displayed on a monitor, and image data to be recorded, Japanese Patent Publication No. 09-224194 proposes a shooting apparatus that enables the generation of image data to be monitored in real time, and image data to be recorded.
This shooting apparatus makes an opto-electrically converting unit perform an operation for outputting image data of two systems, when a display is made on a monitor. Additionally, a process for making a shooting image processing unit perform an operation for generating image data to be monitored according to an image data input of two systems is executed. Furthermore, when a recording operation is performed, a process for making the opto-electrically converting unit perform an operation for outputting image data of one system, and for making the shooting image processing unit perform an operation for generating image data to be recorded according to an image data input of one system is executed.
Furthermore, as one example of a technology for implementing the speed-up of an image capturing process, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-312311 proposes a signal processing apparatus that controls a write of a digital video signal, which is obtained from a television camera, to a memory, partitions the signal into arbitrary areas in a two-dimensional space manner, and processes the video signal in the respectively partitioned areas in parallel.